Actually, the fact he isn't a serious cyclist gives him a unique advantage in selling his software, a program that is attempting to shake up the world of training software.

"Today's Plan is designed for everyone from a beginner to a serious competitor to train smarter," the former Apple Australia MD said.

He's not kidding about the serious competitor part either.

Last month, the company signed on four-time Tour De France winners Team Sky.

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"We've built them a custom program that takes in all the training, rest and nutrition data they need."

Formed in early 2014 and launched to the market last year, Today's Plan has over 11,000 subscribers in more than 50 countries and soon plans to hire someone on the ground in Europe, a market seen as crucial to its success.

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"Basically the company was born out of a frustration shared by three of the four co-founders," said Bowley.

Mark Fenner, one of Australia's top riding coaches, was working with Bowley and mountain bike athlete Andrew Hall. Fenner found he was spending too much time doing administrative tasks rather than analysing the data.

The three brought in user experience expert James Peek, and funded the development out of their own pockets along with a seed investor.

Now Today's Plan has 12 full-time staff and four part-timers with more hiring on the horizon on the developer side.

Global race

With pedal power an increasing force in the economy, start-ups are biting off niches to occupy in that space. For example, two major companies in the US focus on indoor simulated training modules.

Another player is Reno-based Trainer Road. Like Today's Plan, Trainer Road focuses on training and data-gathering technology. It is making major in-roads in the domestic industry with founder Nate Pearson reporting he is annually doubling revenue.

Unlike Trainer Road, however, Today's Plan is not designed with the goal of having its own brand front and centre.

"We let coaches license a version of the software and put their own branding on it, but they will get all our data integration," he said.

Bowley further noted their partnership with the device company Stages was a great advantage.

"They sell tens of thousands of devices that will have our software installed on them, which is very cool for us."

Today's Plan is also unique for its focus on products like the Stages power meter.

"We ingest data from emerging sensor sources like heart rate data and power meter data. Our platform is built to ingest 20 different file formats currently, which is really key to the architecture of our system," he said.

Big switch

Asked why he moved from the relative security of a big corporate to running a start-up, Bowley said he couldn't help it.

Since leaving Apple in 2003, he has most recently worked for Raymarine, a marine electronics company.